Michael Weir: Hibs are genuine title contenders

To me, Hibs now look like they’re on a mission to win the Championship.

I saw a team yesterday that wanted to win the game more than Rangers and, in the end, deserved to take all three points.

We were the better team, especially in the first half. If the selection of pass had been better, we could have been out of sight by half-time. Rangers came into it a bit more in the second half and we did ride our luck a couple of times. We just had to hang in there when they were on top because, with the quality they’ve got, they were always likely to have a good period in the game. I always felt we had a winner in us, though, and, after Paul Hanlon scored, we might even have nicked another one.

The victory will add to our momentum but I’m not reading too much into it with regard to the title because there’s still so much football to be played. Everybody got carried away with Rangers after their strong start to the season and assumed they had the league won by October. But, equally, Hibs winning yesterday doesn’t mean we’re necessarily going to win the league. It just shows that we are genuine contenders and that no team in this league is going to have everything their own way. There are still two thirds of the season to be played and I expect there to be lots of twists and turns between now and May.

Our main prerogative after our slow start to the season was to make sure Rangers didn’t run away from us and, in getting the gap back down to just five points, we’ve done that. We’ve now got a genuine chance, but that’s all it is.

The most important thing for me is that the players are showing a real desire to keep on winning matches, and John McGinn epitomised that – he was superb. The whole back four were solid as well, and Jason Cummings just keeps on scoring. There were so many big performances from Hibs players.

Confidence will be sky high going into the League Cup game against Dundee United but the problem we might have is that we put so much into yesterday, it could take its toll on Wednesday. It’s another exciting game to look forward to before a tricky league game at St Mirren on Saturday.